These, with the judgment to recommend ourselves to those whom we meet in society, and the discrimination to know when and to whom to yield, as well as the discretion to treat all with the deference due to their reputation, station, or merit, comprise, in general, the character of a polite man, over which the admission of even one blot or shade will throw a blemish not easily removed.
— from The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness Being a Complete Guide for a Gentleman's Conduct in All His Relations Towards Society by Cecil B. Hartley

Yes, the time will come when some one of our mutual friends, driving past the Meadow Creek Paresis Club, where Dr. McMullen receives certain amiable but not entirely responsible persons, will behold you hanging cheerily by one hand from the pergola roof with a vacuous smile on your twitching lips, and will say to me sadly: 'Charlie, you knew him, didn't you, in the old days, when his mind was as keen and bright as an editor's knife?'
— from White Ashes by Alden Charles Noble

Honor and a good name are easily taken away, but not easily restored.
— from Lessons in the Small Catechism of Dr. Martin Luther For the Senior Department of Lutheran Sunday-Schools and for General Use by George Mezger

But you are not a Belgian?" "No, English," replied Kenneth.
— from The Dispatch-Riders: The Adventures of Two British Motor-cyclists in the Great War by Percy F. (Percy Francis) Westerman

Hence it follows, that the mere inspection of the thermometer will never determine the heat which the human body feels from this cause; and hence it follows, too, that the heat in most places between the tropics must be much more troublesome and uneasy than the same degree of absolute heat in a high latitude: for the equability and duration of the tropical heat contribute to impregnate the air with a multitude of steams and vapours from the soil and water, and these being, many of them, of an impure and noxious kind, and being not easily removed, by reason of the regularity of the winds in those parts, which only shift the exhalations from place to place without dispersing them, the atmosphere is by this means rendered less capable of supporting the animal functions, and mankind are consequently affected with what they stile a most intense and stifling heat: whereas in the higher latitudes these vapours are probably raised in smaller quantities, and the irregularity and violence of the winds frequently disperse them, so that, the air being in general pure and less stagnant, the same degree of absolute heat is not attended with that uneasy and suffocating sensation.
— from A Voyage Round the World in the Years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV by Anson, George Anson, Baron

A source of confusion, too, has arisen from the introduction of so many of our popular names from America, Thus, the Gum-tree (Eucalypt) is not a Gum, the 'Possum is not the carnivorous Opossum of America, the Goanna is not the equivalent of the vegetarian American Iguana; the "Wild Cat" is not a Cat, nor is the "Native Bear" a Bear, nor even remotely related to one, nor is the Kestrel a Sparrowhawk.
— from An Australian Bird Book: A Pocket Book for Field Use by John Albert Leach

He was dressed in English khaki—clothes, leggings, spy-glass, map-book, canteen, haversack, spurs, a brand new English rifle, with a pocket full of 100 franc notes.
— from Soldiers of the Legion, Trench-Etched by John Bowe

Altogether, he was a pleasant person to look at, but not especially remarkable at first sight.
— from To Leeward by F. Marion (Francis Marion) Crawford